No, George, EosJ did not mention the "challenge" specifically, but it is at the top of all the topic listings in the "Polygraph Procedures" section of this website, and it is continually referred to either explicitly or implicitly by most of the "anti-" people on this website who pose as experts on the polygraph without any personal experience whatsoever. To say that polygraphers can not detect countermeasures is both true and false depending on how you look at it. It is true that even though a well-trained polygrapher will often notice atypical responses that he or she knows, through much experience, are the result of manipulation by the examinee, he or she may not know exactly which countermeasure caused the atypical responses. Hence, one could say, "The polygrapher didn't catch the examinee because all the polygrapher could say was that countermeasures were used, and he couldn't say what the examinee did." You know the old saying "You had to be there," right? Well, George, when it comes to conducting polygraphs and knowing what I am talking about when I say "atypical responses," you haven't been there. Perhaps you need to attend a bonafide "countermeasures" course conducted by a reputable polygraph school. I can tell you that it would open your eyes to what it is possible for the polygrapher to see when it comes to examinee manipulation or attempted manipulation of responses. But again, you haven't been there. I know from personal experience what atypical responses look like. I have caught examinees attempting countermeasures, and have been proven right by examinee admissions. I never confront examinees just to play a game to see if I can dig up something of which I am not sure, and I do not regularly question examinees regarding attempted countermeasures when the proof isn't visible to me. Now, that said, could an examinee, with sufficient training and feedback, learn to manipulate his or her responses so that even a well-trained examiner would miss the manipulations? I think so. But from my own experience, I do not believe there are many examinees capable of such a convincing performance, taking into account such factors as habituation and desensitization over the course of an exam. What we see instead are the tell-tale consistent signs of atypical response patterns. I don't know how to explain it any better than this if you haven't been there. Which reminds me, you haven't been there, George. You and the "anti-" crowd that follows you just don't get it. The lab is not the real world. If you insist on looking at lab studies, you can find studies that both support and refute the reliability of the polygraph, and you can pick and choose whichever ones seem to support your agenda. The "pro-" people can do the same. But at least the "pro-" people will admit that even those lab studies that support their view and refute yours can not accurately and assuredly replicate what goes on in the real world. Why would another lab study conducted as part of a "countermeasures challenge," prove anything one way or another, regardless of who "won"? At least the "pro-" people have on their side something you do not when it comes to support studies: Confirmation of theory by examinee admissions. That's real world. But of course, you haven't been there. When all is said and done (what a statement, since nothing will ever be said and done that will convince people on either side of the equation of the fallacy of their beliefs), I think it comes down to one basic difference between you and me, George. That's right, you haven't been there. Now, I don't expect to get the last word in here. I find it amusing that an apparent young person's request for help on a school report gets us into a discussion which will get us nowhere. But if our young Sarah still reads this forum, I hope she keeps in mind one thing: Most of the so-called experts on this website, although having failed the polygraph and/or erroneously taken the side of those who have, all have the same glaring deficiency when they want to convince others that they know what they are talking about. Yes, that's right: They haven't been there.
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